teens and txting, lolz

This week I’m moving away from cyberbullying, but am keeping with part of last week’s theme—mobile phones and, specifically, the use of texting. In earlier weeks I have mentioned how annoying it is to be around someone who is constantly texting. Are they paying attention to their phone or to you? Are they just being rude? Are they not interested in what you have to say? The questions that pop up can be endless.

It seems that kids are getting cell phones at younger and younger ages, which inevitably means they are becoming text addicts earlier and earlier. Texting has become a form of communication that is more popular than talking on the phone (and we all know how teenagers can talk to each other on the phone for hours and hours…). Thus, when teenagers reach the age where they are receiving their driver’s licenses, it is difficult for them to have to entirely stop this incredibly consuming mode of communication while they are driving.  This is a problem that seems to be increasing in its occurrence. In fact, studies have shown that anywhere from twenty percent to more than fifty percent of teenagers admit to texting while driving… and studies also have shown that distracted driving is the leading cause of automobile accidents. And what’s the most common distraction? Yep, you guessed it—texting. Long story short, people really need to use some common sense and just put the phone down while they’re headed from point A to point B. That would probably prevent a lot of accidents from occurring. But a recent State Farm study discovered that teenagers don’t think texting while driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving (in reality, a driver that texts and drives has a twenty-three times greater risk of being in an accident, versus four times for those who drive while intoxicated).

I was recently with a group of mothers of teenagers, so I asked them about the texting and driving problem, and if they had had any discussions with their teen about its danger. They had, which was no surprise to me; however, a number of them had also done something I hadn’t even considered. They had their teens drive stick shift cars. Now, manual vehicles are not very common in the United States, but these mothers made sure the cars they bought for their teens’ use were manual and not automatic. Since driving a manual car requires the use of both hands much of the time (one on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shifter), texting while driving becomes nearly impossible. These parents felt like the likelihood of texting while driving being a problem for their teens was almost nonexistent. The other parents… well, not so much. I think this is a very interesting “solution” to the problem. Plus, it isn’t like these parents don’t trust their children; rather, they felt that by limiting the opportunity for texting, it would be easier for their children to not even be tempted to text, which made them feel more comfortable. I wasn’t able to find any sort of study about this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their rationale is someday supported and proven to be correct.

Apparently, car crashes aren’t the only thing to be worried about when it comes to teens and texting. “Extreme texting,” or “hyper-texting,” which is defined as sending from at least eighty text messages to 120 text messages per day (depending on the study), poses many other health risks. In addition to an increased risk in driving accidents, texting can cause sleep disruption, trigger thumb, back pain, and neck pain. Plus anxiety, distraction in school, and falling grades. You thought cell phones were banned during school hours in many schools? You may be correct; however, many teens are able to text without even looking at their phones—a hand in a pocket is enough to send a message (though, of course, not for the touch-screen phones, like the iPhone). Teens are always worried about missing something, being out of the loop, and that is one reason why texting is so prevalent.  Some psychologists worry that the increase in texting is changing how adolescents develop, and changing their autonomy.  With texting, teens can constantly be in connection with their parents, which could prohibit them from making their own decisions and growing into their own identities. I’m not sure how much I buy that argument, but it’s definitely one about which people worry.

But that’s not all. A recent press release by the American Public Health Association states that new research demonstrates that teens who hyper-text are more likely to smoke, drink, engage in sexual activity, do drugs, and get in physical fights, among other behaviors of poor health. The study doesn’t say that hyper-texting leads to these behaviors, but that hyper-texting “facilitates or enables” them. Overall, it is a pretty disturbing discovery. Of course, teens who text excessively often come from family backgrounds where parents aren't available (for text regulation, rule enforcement, etc.), which often means the kids have less supervision and an increased risk of bad behavior; there are a lot of reasons why these things may be correlated.

So next time you text, make sure you're not doing it while you drive, or when you're supposed to be actually interacting with real, live human beings.

cyberbullying, part III: sexting

Another form of cyberbullying that has not been discussed is that of sexting. Sexting occurs when one person texts sexually explicit content, whether it be a written message or an image, to another. If you look back at my first post on this blog, you can see some of the statistics I put up about teenagers and their mobile phone usage. Fact: teenagers text. A lot. This can lead to many different issues (high phone bills, antisocial behavior, etc.) but there is one that may not cross the mind of many parents—sexting. The majority of parents do not believe their child has been involved in sexting at all, whether it is sending a sext, receiving one, or even being the victim in one. Many times, sexting occurs between two people who are involved as romantic partners.

While this is not necessarily a problem, what happens when they break up? Somtimes these messages are kept in between the two people involved; sometimes they are not. The sender has no way to prevent the receiver from forwarding the sexts (in this case, they are usually x-rated images of the sender) onto other people via text message or email. Additionally, this does not have to happen after a couple has broken up, or even if they were ever together—once the images have entered cyberspace, they are impossible to control. The Pew Internet and American Life Project did a study on teens and sexting in 2009 and found that it is becoming increasingly common for these sexts to be used as a type of “relationship currency. ” They often are sent when one person is interested in beginning a relationship with another, and they act as an opener or a demonstration of interest. While I find this hard to digest, we were all teens once, and it certainly can be an age at which one is particularly vulnerable.

A tragic example of this is of a 13-year-old girl who hanged herself after photographs of her, topless, circulated her middle school and then the local high school, and even neighboring schools. Apparently, she had sent a picture to a boy she had liked; someone else had intercepted the phone when the picture was sent, and the rest is history. She was taunted and mobbed in the hallways, and the school, upon finding out what happened, suspended her. She made a mistake, as many teens do, but, as a character in the Facebook movie aptly says, “the Internet is written in ink.” When something is said or shared in cyberspace, it is there forever.

Sexting does affect more than just teenagers, and I will quickly throw in a few examples. For instance, there is Tiger Woods and his various mistresses who came up with sexts from him, proof of their affairs. Then there’s Brett Farve, who has apparently been caught sexting:



Teens’ opinions of sexting vary from one extreme to the other, with some seeing it as “no big deal” to others focusing on the potential consequences, possibly viewing it as illegal. Something that seems very private may not be, for the reasons mentioned above. Sometimes this can be hard for teenagers to even think about, but the prosecution of some teens for child pornography (i.e. sexts) should be something more for them to think about, as it brings a reality to some of the teens’ fears of legal repercussions. Additionally, there was a group of teenage boys who were recently arrested for using text messages to harass another student at their school: this is another instance of cyberbullying. While this is not sexting, it is along a very similar vein, as it uses text messages as a form of harassment.

The harassment from sexting tends to occur outside of the home, often in schools. This increases the risk for many teens because it decreases the knowledge and influence the parents can have. Acknowledging the dangerous growth of sexting, in 2009, the National Crime Prevention Council issued a news release about its dangers. More recently, the FCC announced that it will start to address issues of cyberbullying in schools where the Internet is subsidized by the government. It's a start.